A Film About The Child Survivors Of Pearl Harbor

Earth-shattering is a relevant term. Surely, for every soldier, sailor, and civilian at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the world was truly shattered. Hundreds of lives were broken into pieces, as the rainstorm of a Japanese sneak attack shattered a still Sunday morning.

From the perspective of a child, though, the concussion of falling bombs, the scenes of panic, the screams of the injured, and that shattering of the earth were multiplied tenfold in their young minds. When you are six years old, the world is something you look up at. Imagine the thoughts of the children that looked skyward that morning, only to see foreign fighter planes spitting bullets at their homes. Their families were in more peril that day than ever before, and the world was changing by the second all around them.

Children like Joanne Adams were at Pearl Harbor seventy years ago. When Joanne looked into the heavens on December 7, she stared straight into the eyes of a Japanese pilot from the front yard of her military-base home. A few hours later, she and her family would emerge from a naval officers’ quarters, now being used as an air raid shelter, to find that building raked from strafing fire. Joanne’s aviator father was no longer with them. He was now at war.

That same morning, Joe Estores was about to enjoy a day of fishing with his younger brother and his soldier father. The sound of explosions in the distance was nothing new to Joe. Practice anti-aircraft fire was a common sound for residents of Camp Kamehameha on the harbor side of Hawaii’s Hickam Army Air Corps base. But Joe’s father sensed a danger in the sound. And he was right: All off-duty military personnel were already being called to their posts to defend the island of Oahu. Soon, Joe’s dad would have to separate from his wife and eight children before he could get them to safety. Now Joe’s mother would be charged with driving the entire family directly through the Japanese target zone, with machine-gun fire thrashing the road all around the car, and American aircraft exploding on either side of them.

But Joe lived through that day. So did Joanne, and so did Anne Shambaugh, who never saw her Naval Commander father again after that morning. Cecil Meadows was a toddler who survived the terror of the Pearl Harbor attack, just like Pamela Nicholson. Author Joan Zuber Earle survives today, too. She recalls starting December 7 of ’41 by alerting her parents that the nearby USS West Virginia was listing dangerously. She ended the day examining a piece of the mighty USS Arizona that landed squarely in her front yard after the great battleship, moored just a quarter-mile or so from Joan’s bedroom, exploded and finally succumbed to its wounds.

Dan Inouye was a teenager in 1941, but like his younger friends, his life was turned inside-out by the roar of gunfire and explosions in his hometown. Unlike Joanne Adams or Cecil Meadows, though, Dan was a Japanese-American. On his first view of the Japanese Zero planes racing overhead, he knew his life would be altered forever, as he would be challenged to prove his loyalty. Daniel was able to start meeting that challenge at once, by lending aid to those in need that Sunday. Within two years, he would be allowed to enlist in the US Army, where he won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Of course, Dan is better known now as Senator Daniel Inouye, and he has served in Washington ever since Hawaii became a state in 1959.

Their numbers are low. Perhaps 150 are known to live in the United States today. But the “Children of Pearl Harbor,” who saw their beautiful playground paradise become a battlefield, tell tales of December 7 unlike any other survivors of that fateful day.

Children of Pearl will bring a new kind of survivors’ story to history lovers and military buffs, one that can only come from the perspective of those who watched their parents become the first Americans to fall under the shadow of World War II.

As seen in the video clip that accompanies this treatment (at http://www.childrenofpearl.com), interviews with nearly two dozen child survivors of Pearl Harbor will show the audience how servicemen of all branches, and from all over America, brought their families to the Pacific. A picture of pre-war Hawaii will be painted by the memories of the children of servicemen stationed at one of the bases there and by those who were born and raised on the islands. The splendor of the lush Pacific gardens and the easy, laid-back lifestyle made for an idyllic place to grow up, and famed National Park Service historian Daniel Martinez (host of Unsolved History) will describe the home life of Honolulu-area families.

Then, the recollections of army brats and fun-loving adolescents switch to the flashpoint of December 1941. The attack came in three waves, targeting Pearl Harbor, Ford Island, Hickam Field, and Schofield Barracks. The first bombs fell about 7:55 AM, and by most accounts, it was over before the clock struck 10 that morning, or even earlier, depending on the target area. But for the children of the area, two hours felt like an eternity. Many saw their parents panic for the first time. They were frightened not just by streaking planes but also by frantic soldiers and by confusing commands from adults. One young person recalls seeing an army airman engulfed in flames, searching hopelessly for help.

Some of Hawaii’s youngest were not caught in the action and did not feel the brunt of the attack. But as the first weeks of war redefined their world, the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was felt in waves as stunning as those of the Japanese attack. Children of Pearl opens the memory banks of those who tried to continue growing up in America’s Pacific military outpost. Many found themselves suddenly forced to leave their island home for the mainland under evacuation orders. Some had less than a day to help their parents pack whatever they were allowed to take and then endured a long ship journey to west coast destinations that were very strange to them.

For those kids who lingered in the islands a little longer, there was a shift in how the many Japanese-Americans of Hawaii were viewed. Schools changed. Friendships dissolved. Rumors of spying, disloyalty, and a sure-to-come Japanese invasion of Hawaii were rampant. Respect and love for the many Japanese domestics changed in some cases but endured in others.

The specter of war gave roles to children that they were never meant to have. Young ones went from learning to tie shoelaces to learning how to don gas masks. Some children were even instructed how to load and fire machine guns, so that they could aid in the defense of the islands if Japan attacked again.

And while children were displaced and given to new roles, their parents struggled with more responsibility and long, troubling separations from one another. The Pearl Harbor Kids all tell us of the awe they still feel for their moms and dads, who were keeping them safe and trying to keep them happy, in a newly dangerous world.

The audience will hear recollections of how family life changed forever for these children and how they grew up haunted by what they saw. And while the nightmare of December 7 manifested itself in harsh ways for some, most child survivors tell listeners today that the experience built them to be better citizens and true patriots, never taking what America offered for granted.

And even in the light of the “New Pearl Harbor,” the attacks of September 11, 2001, the audience may be surprised to hear how the Pearl Harbor child survivors look at the world and America’s adversaries – both from the war of seventy years ago and today.

Children of Pearl‘s generous number of survivor interviews will be augmented by narrative script. Besides the American children who lived in Hawaii, viewers will hear from native Hawaiian kids who were living on the periphery of the attack, away from the military community. Japanese citizens living in Hawaii raised families too, and the stories of those children reflect their sudden new status after the surprise attack.

Helping complete the arc of the survivors’ stories are the comments of historians like Daniel Martinez and experts in child trauma. Illustrating the many stories will be the personal photos and cherished mementos of the survivors, along with those documents of public record that help the viewer step back to the world of tiny, vulnerable islands many decades ago. Scenes of Hawaii today and then will help the viewer see Hawaii the way the survivors saw it in 1941, and how they see their childhood homes today.

Finally, the experiences of that time will be visualized in the way that might best suit the way we view young children. The memories of many of our survivors will be literally illustrated, by the pen of an acknowledged children’s artist, with subtle animation bringing flat art to life for the viewer.

Truly understanding a monumental time in history requires an exploration of all the people who were present, no matter their age or role in the community. Military kids and other children who witnessed the attacks on Pearl Harbor and other military bases have much to tell the world about how that day unfolded, and how times progressed afterwards for both themselves and others.

Children of Pearl brings an heretofore unvoiced perspective of Pearl Harbor to a waiting audience.